


Such Great Heights (046. star)

by senoritablack



Series: big ass rickyl table [4]
Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Depression, First Time, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Marijuana, Mention of Death, Mentions of Cancer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-02
Updated: 2015-12-02
Packaged: 2018-05-04 13:08:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5335241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/senoritablack/pseuds/senoritablack
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rick's never know heights like these and as always, he's got Daryl to thank. AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Such Great Heights (046. star)

 

The rusted, chain-linked fence was dewy with early morning as they jumped it and it stained his gloves in maroon.  It smelled of the nearby stream which had been long compromised by industrial outflow. The putrid smell carried with them as they ran.

“We ain’t gunna get lead poisonin’ or somethin’, are we?” Rick asked, huffing into his thick-knitted scarf. They slowed together.  

Daryl snorted, then grunted as he kicked away scrap metal and the overgrown dandelions that hid it. His mouth was cloaked behind a bulky scarf of his own, but Rick knew that he was smiling. The single eyebrow raised in silent condescension—Rick had known the look for years and had often, he wasn’t afraid to admit, deserved it. He was bad at asking questions, and thankful Daryl was good at answering them. Rick didn't think himself ignorant, didn't think himself stupid. He'd gotten into college alright enough for that. It was just that ever since they were kids it was him asking the _why comes_ and _how sos_ , and Daryl filling in the details sourced from his just seemingly endless, unwritten encyclopedia of crap. So stands their dynamic ‘til this day.

“Come on, it’s the taller building.” Daryl said, tugging his backpack tighter over his shoulder. He nodded towards a small walkway, with cracks in its cement, and Rick walked along a prominent one with Daryl’s lead. He looked more to the sky then ahead, counting the stars as he went. He was glad for their light. Daryl'd said their eye's would adjust, and they had, but just the same Rick wasn't too keen on the dark. He wondered vaguely why they couldn't do hold out for dawn.

But he couldn't kid himself.

He’d never been able say no—not to Daryl. Not that time they’d snuck into old man Greene’s house for the baseball they’d knocked right into his window, nor that time they filled balloons and hid up in a tree, chuckin’ ‘em at the seniors from Monroe High. He didn’t see _how_ he could say no. Not Daryl who taught him a proper hook ‘n bait ‘n cast; not the same Daryl who stole his brother’s motorcycle and took them out for spin down around the orchards (Merle shot empty beer bottles at them when they got back); not Daryl who’s always managed to come up with some bizzare plan that more often than not was a sure fire way to get them _killed_ —always managing to come up with ‘em whenever Rick wasn’t feeling one hundred percent.

And he’s not been—one hundred, that is. His aunt died and he’s failed out of college. He made huge mistakes and living was becoming expensive. She was a good person and cancers, unfortunately, come at no price at all. He’ll chalk it up to that.

 “Rick! Come on, man!” Daryl shouted. He stood atop a downturned dumpster. 

“What’re you doin’?” Rick asked, watching him from the adjacent walkway.

Daryl gave him _the look_  and ignored him. He jumped haphazardly for the last rung of a metal, pull-down ladder like a cat trying to find footing in a tree branch. 

“Oh!” Rick said softly, and hoisted himself up the dumpster to join Daryl.

“Yeah! Somma the steel workers used to live in ‘em, ya see?” Daryl explained. He had managed to grab the bar at last. “So they got these like regular apartments.”

“So we’re meant to what? Climb til dawn?” Rick asked, helping Daryl pull it down. 

“If you don’t shut your trap and climb, we might be all damned day.”

Daryl went first. Rick followed and every so often he'd pause, look down and watch the dumpster get smaller and smaller as they ascended higher and higher.  In no time at all they were something like 50ft in the air. When they had reached the top, Daryl slipped off his backpack and swung it over the ledge of the roof. He helped Rick up with an outstretched hand. While they had once again found solid ground underneath them, they had lost their light. They stood crouched underneath a weather worn awning that seemed to keep the cold and darkness concentrated within it.

Rick frowned. He followed in step with Daryl. He thought about how high up they were and how dark it was—how it’d be a pretty embarrassing way to go if he was to trip on his on shoelace, when his foot caught on loose gravel. Daryl pivoted just in time, steadying Rick before he could fall.

“You ok?” he asked. 

“Sure enough. Just wasn’t planning on falling off a building tonight.”  Rick replied. Daryl grabbed him by the back of his neck, then fingering short curly hair and pushing Rick in front him.

“Here, just walk slow and I’ll guide you.” He said.

Rick let himself be directed back into the light of the moon and towards the opposite end of the roof where stood a large air conditioner, spotted in mold and eroded green paint. Daryl let go of Rick and sat against it, getting as comfortable as he could with his back to cold metal and ass on gravel blanketed in wet moss.

“Well, you gunna sit or what?” He said, setting his backpack between his crossed legs. He unzipped it and pulled out an old coffee tin. Rick nodded, and sunk next to him, watching as Daryl opened it. He pulled from it a lighter and half-smoked joint.

“Said you’d never bother me with that stuff.” Rick said.

“That’s why I’m not offering! This is mine.”  Daryl pulled down his scarf and placed the joint between his lips.

 “I wanted you to see this.” He mumbled around it, waving a hand to display the view below them. “You can’t get a 360 of Monroe at no place but here!”

Rick nodded again in inarguable acceptance. He let his eyes wander from Daryl’s concave cheeks and down to the joint’s cherry which had sparked in bright oranges and yellows as he inhaled. Then he followed the trail of smoke that rose from it and disappeared into the night. He heard Daryl give a heavy sigh as he exhaled, and his shoulders dropped as if he had been carrying rocks on them and with one hit they became leaf light, caught in the wind and lost. Rick never thought about what Daryl might be carrying because Daryl didn’t like to talk about himself. Even when Rick offered to drink him dumb down at their favorite bar, Daryl’d get as far as a beer and think better than it, he supposes. They’d say goodbye without Rick knowing whether or not he’d helped Daryl out at all. Rick wanted to ask him why he kept it hidden whatever it must have been, wanted to ask him how it felt when the weight falls when he realized it’d been one of the bad questions of his and he’d of gotten the look for third time that night. 

So Rick didn’t ask. He waited until Daryl took another hit before he stole the joint for himself. He pulled down his scarf and copied how he’d seen it done at parties and it caught in his throat. He was in tears as he choked, laughing as he tried to find air. Daryl didn’t spare Rick’s feelings, and took the joint as he chuckled and repeatedly brought down a heavy opened hand at Rick’s back.

“F-fuck!” Rick said between spluttering.

“What you get.” Daryl laughed.

“Yeah.” Rick joined.

Daryl told him not inhale so much next time and Rick listened. He only coughed a little, and after Daryl’s turn, not at all. They watched the skyline dance in small spheres of light blurred in their smoke ringlets and streams, watched in silence until the joint was out and Rick felt a tingling in his finger tips and nose, and his eyes were heavy and drying. 

“So?” Rick said, head thumping back against the air conditioner. He hadn’t notice the change in the colors around them, how the stars dimmed and the moon fizzled out, coloring themselves with the approaching sun.

“So,” Daryl said back, cocking his head to the side like he had just notice the same.

“How do you—you know it’s working?” Rick asked, nudging Daryl with his elbow. Daryl sat with a downturned mouth, deep in thought, before he grinned. 

"Whatcha thinking?" he asked. Rick, confused, could not answer right away—he was thinking of so little it surprised himself when he finally spoke.

"About them,” he said, stretching an arm out from where it was crossed against the cold. He pointed to a cluster of stars. “Bout them, mostly.”

“What bout ‘em?” Daryl said, leaning towards Rick. He looked up Rick’s arm like a telescope, squinting to see what Rick saw. Not sure why he'd done it, Rick grabbed Daryl's hand and laced their fingers. If Daryl had any objections he didn't voice them. Rick raised their hands in the air, and let loose his pointer finger, prompting Daryl to do the same. Together, like that, they played a shy game of connect the dots and whispered to each other about the shapes they saw. And every so often, Daryl'd remember the name of a constellation and he'd slowly move their telescope to it. Rick found himself distracted by the way Daryl spoke, watching his mouth rather than the outlining of the Canis Major. It was then Rick realized what little distance between Daryl and himself there was. Daryl didn't seem to mind or care, but he didn't seem much of anything. He was suspiciously aloof, was the thing.  Rick thought it funny, but with every exhale it was as if he was coming closer. With every inhale it was like Daryl was tuning himself to a higher resolution, like Rick could see him clearer and for what he was; something far—something mystifying and bright.

“Where do they—I just wonder how they keep lit and if it ever gets tiresome?” Rick asked, picking up the forgotten question. He grimaced. He couldn’t stop watching Daryl’s silhouette come in and out of focus—he could have soon had it saved to memory, each angle and curve—how long eyelashes lifted up and down, nose twitched and each lip raised themselves into a cautious smile. Rick couldn't have seen it if he wasn't that close, but Daryl was nervous.

“And it’s like…” Rick continued. He freed himself of Daryl's hand.

“I mean, they have to be tired—tired of walking and having to hold a light behind them so fools like me knew where to step and follow. What happens when the sun eats them up, and they’re forgotten for a few hours of the day? Afraid of the dark? Ever feel unappreciated? All I know is they’ll always come back, regardless, and it blows my mind that some—er—thing could be that selfless.“

Daryl hummed. There was a pause before his nostrils flared as they do when he tried to stop himself from laughing, but then he turned to Rick with a frown. Rick thought he might have, for once, asked the right question. His heart thumped up in his chest and rung in his ears. He tried to clear his throat, but it was too dry. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth before falling down in a soft smack. Daryl looked at Rick in a muted horror, eyes searching Rick’s face as if he was sitting next to a stranger. Then he stood up in a rush, pebbles falling from where they were lodged in his coat and jeans, and pulled Rick by the elbow to follow. 

“Think it’s working.” He murmured, knocking with too knuckles where Rick’s heart rested. “Can I—Can I try something?” 

Rick, unable to do much else, nodded. Daryl for lack of words for the first time since Rick could remember, nodded too. He cupped Rick’s cheek in one hand and Rick saw nothing after, he closed his eyes and listened as Daryl shifted closer, confused as to whether it was his coat or Daryl’s that was whistling with the movement of their ragged breaths. He waited silently, scared to move for fear of ruining whatever were to come, feeling his bottom lip vibrate with the pulse of Daryl’s wandering thumb. The buzz seemed permeated all throughout his face, warming his cheeks and neck. Then out of the rush, Daryl kissed it him still--soft once, and again harder when Rick reach out for more. Rick let Daryl chase fleeting kisses as he backed them into the air conditioner.

“Long time comin.” He said hoarsely, as he pulled away. The sun, he noticed, had half risen and it gave a glow to Daryl that resembled a half moon. He took a moment to study Daryl in the new light; long nose, beauty mark and golden brown tufts falling from his beanie—he was so very beautiful, so very illuminated, then. The epiphany struck Rick like a gust of late November wind.

“Think you’re like a star, Dare.”

“Ball of gas pretty much explains it, yah.” Daryl chuckled. Rick, determinedly, did not.

“I mean it I owe a lot to you, you know that right?” He asked, cocking his head and knitting together his brows. He looked at Daryl like a puzzle he was sure he was close to solving.

“Hey, owin' sounds a lot like business. It don’t gotta—mean I never wanted it to seem that way to you.” Daryl said, drawing away from Rick. He stuffed his hands into this coat pockets and kicked at rubble, looking to the fading stars instead of Rick. Rick shook his head, disbelieving. He smiled, stroking Daryl’s cheeks and forcing their eyes to meet.

“Then thank you.” Rick said simply, shrugging. “Just thank you.”

“It’s what we do.” Daryl replied, taking a messy hold of Rick’s arms and brining him into a hug.

Rick hummed as Daryl whispered his own confessions into Rick's heavy-jacketed shoulder. He wanted to close his eyes, to settle into the mix of familiarity and newness, but he also wanted to watch the sunrise. He wanted Daryl to watch it too. He wondered if Daryl was watching already, if he saw how the streetlights flickered off and how the stars finally got to rest. 

He'd seen the sunset an ass full of times, but that’s because you gotta; as a kid you throw around a ball too long and soon enough your glove is catching moonlight instead of sun, and your parents are calling you in. It's an ever climbing beauty. But what he’d found here was death defying new heights. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> So if there's reoccurring themes in some of these BAT fills, it's because I wrote a whole bunch of them at one time. *Shrug* Summer 2014-early 2015 was rough. 
> 
> Anyway! This fic is whatever this fic is (I just love writing AUs where I could write about how much Daryl And Rick complement each other), and is named after a song by the Postal Service. 
> 
> Decided to post this because I wanted to just edit something? And I felt like writing? Even though I'm dead after Nanowrimo! I'm dead! DEAD. Also I'm a lil tipsy, but when am I not?


End file.
